After Rare Feat, Harrigan-Scott Focusing on Pan Am Games 100m

Every athlete has a goal of competing in the International Association of Athletics Federations World Championships. Some never get the chance, others once even twice.

For Tahesia Hariggan-Scott it’s totally different. She’s coming off winning the US Track and Field Club Championships in New York on July 11. More so, her winning 100m time of 11.14 seconds with a legal wind limit of 2.0 meters per second, qualified her for a fifth successive IAAF World Championships.

This year however, was the latest in her career, that she has met the standard dating back to 2005.

“I’m very relieved that I’ve qualified for worlds,” she said. “It was tough. But now, it’s one less stress to think about and to go out and qualify with the time I did, I’m very relieved. But, to be really honest, I was feeling okay at the beginning of this season, though I had some downfalls with injuries or slight issues with recurring injuries, so that kind of set me back a little bit,” reflected the BVI sprinter from a country of less than 30,000 inhabitants.

She said the road was a little tougher, because in practices she felt like she ran okay, but when she went to a meet, she ran terrible times. “That was playing on my mind a little bit,” she noted. “I knew it was always there and it was just making some corrections. Once they fell into place, I knew there’d be a big drop in my time. It was being patient and trusting in the process.”

With a season’s best of 11.40 before the 11.14, which is .01 off her best and which she hadn’t been close to since 2011, Harrigan-Scott said it’s a confidence boost heading into Pan Ams and feels that her body is finally in synch with her mind and everything seems easier. If she’s not doing something right, her body tells her she said. “It is a confidence booster and I’ll try to come out and win a medal,” she said. “That’s the goal and to continue to drop my times and execute the race that I know I’m capable of doing.”

Since injuring her quads two years ago, Harrigan-Scott said she has developed some bad habits that she and her husband-coach have been trying to correct, including kicking back, which is less than what it was before. She said she taught her body how to run without the pain but in the process it caused poor race execution and resulted in slower times.

“Everything seem to be coming into place at the right time,” she said. “Yes, it would have been good to qualify for worlds earlier in the season, but it’s falling into place at the right time and it’s a blessing in disguise.”